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Greece Debt Crisis

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Greece's Debt Crisis Greece is a country in financial peril. A series of missteps and misguidance led them to become a burden for the rest of the world to endure. Corruption and pitfalls fueled a downfall that may never be repaid to the residents of Greece, or to the European Union who were forced to bail them out. The question is, however, how all of this happened? It all started in the 2000's with the adoption of the Euro. It was one of the first countries to do so, under the pretense that it had achieved "economic convergence" with the other countries involved. Upon launch, the Euro surpassed the dollar in value, and Greece saw access to cheap capital, giving confidence to their investors. The investors took advantage of this, and accumulated massive public debt despite the EU claiming it would prevent so from happening. Then, in 2002, it became clear that Greece was among others under false pretenses. Greece had cooked its books to enter into the brotherhood this new currency offered. Exact numbers were not revealed until 2004, when it became knowledge that Greece had understated its budget deficit by 6.8%. This number is staggering, considering the acceptable budget deficit is only 3% to begin with. Yet as the Olympic games approached, the Greek government decided to do nothing, and say nothing, rather than address the problem at hand. Soon, the crisis was in full swing. By 2007 the crisis had started to affect not only Greece, who was hit the hardest, but also the United States, Ireland, Spain and many other countries. Greece was unprepared for this more so than any other country, however. The gap between their revenues and their expenditure was immense, making them very susceptible to downfall. In 2008, their tax collection as a whole collapsed. They were in dire need of assistance. This worried the eurozone countries, who feared that if Greece were

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